This Black Social History is design for the education of all races about Black People Contribution to world history over the past centuries, even though its well hidden from the masses so that our children dont even know the relationship between Black People and the wealth of their history in terms of what we have contributed to make this world a better place for all.

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Sunday, 28 September 2014

BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " FRANCOIS SCARBOROUGH CLEMMONS " IS AN AFRO-AMERICAN SINGER, PERFORMER, PLAYWRIGHT AND UNIVERSITY LECTURER : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY François Clemmons

François Scarborough Clemmons (born April 23, 1945) is an Afro-American singer, performer, playwright and university lecturer. He is perhaps best known for his appearances on the PBS television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood throughout the 1970s.

History

Clemmons was born in Alabama, but his family moved to Youngstown, Ohio while he was still very young. He was raised in a musical household, and some of the first songs he sang were pre-Civil War Negro spirituals which he heard his great grandmother sing while she was working. When it was discovered that Clemmons had a gifted singing voice, he began to sing at nursery school and at church functions.

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

For 25 years, Clemmons performed the role of Officer Clemmons, a friendly neighborhood policeman, in the "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" on the children's television showMister Rogers' Neighborhood. In the neighborhood itself, Clemmons ran a singing and dance studio located in the building diagonally across from Mr. Rogers' house.

The Harlem Spiritual Ensemble

In the late 1980s, Clemmons had an experience singing spirituals with a friend that left him profoundly moved. The experience led him away from operatic performance toward an earlier love: traditional spirituals:

I was enjoying the singing of these spirituals .... I was giving artistry in a way -- I was giving my art in a way that I had not felt it was so important as when I was singing Mozart -- or when I was singing Schubert -- or Donizetti or Bellini .... I began to ask Fred Rogers why there was no professional ensemble that sang spirituals comparable to a Haydn Society or a St. Cecelia Society or a Handel Society or Bach.[1]

When he was unable to find a society like the one he envisioned, Clemmons decided to create one: The Harlem Spiritual Ensemble, dedicated to "preserving, sustaining and commissioning new and traditional arrangements of American Negro Spirituals for future generations."[2]

Writing and arranging

Clemmons has arranged a volume of spirituals called Song for Today and has written and produced a stage musical based on the life of Roland Hayes. His works currently in progress include an autobiography, a children's book, and a volume of poetry.

Personal life

Dr. Clemmons lives and works in Middlebury, Vermont, where he was an artist-in-residence and Twilight Scholar at Middlebury College.[3] He is also well known in the Middlebury community for his superb rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at Middlebury College men's basketball games at Pepin Gymnasium. He is a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music, of which Fred Rogers was also a member. Clemmons retired at the end of the 2012-2013 academic year.